


This Weakness In Me

by Squidink



Category: Watchmen (Comic), Watchmen - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Gen, Post-Roche, Pre-Canon, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-07
Updated: 2008-12-07
Packaged: 2017-12-15 06:39:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/846478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Squidink/pseuds/Squidink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The thing is, they were supposed to be the heroes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Weakness In Me

**Author's Note:**

> This was my first _Watchmen_ fic, way back when.

"Jesus _fuck_ man," the junkie is shrieking, blood and spittle and snot flecking all over Nite Owl's face, more with every syllable. "What the _fuck_ , what the hell, shit, man, shit, I didn't do nothing!  Nothing!"

The junkie rears back, clawed and ragged hands sliding fruitlessly against the slick material over Nite Owl's chest, struggling for purchase, for something to tangle in.  It's oddly intimate, in these moments; flush up against him and struggling for supremacy, feral and angry and reeking of terror.   The junkie goes for a groin shot; Dan puts his thigh in the way, tripping up the kid – God, he is just a kid, a punk kid out here like this – and slams the junkie onto his back, his head bouncing on the concrete.   It leaves a small dark blotch of blood and skin behind.   

The junkie shrieks anew.

"Stay still!" Nite Owl commands, imperious and aloof, while Dan internally winces at the _thunk_ of the kid’s skull making contact with filthy tarmac again. "This will go easier for everyone if you just go down, kid."

"Fuck you!  Fuck you!  I didn't do nothing, faggot, nothing!" The kid screeches.  Mad with fear, his eyes are peeled wide and glassy, pupils huge.  His skin is bruised where Nite Owl's fists have been, flushing green and black and purple.  It reminds Dan of abstract art, distantly, some fractal design, or maybe floral prints, he’s not sure.  Dan grunts, trying to straddle the junkie in place and zip tie his hands. "Stop it, man, fucking _fuck_ , I didn't, I don't need this shit!  Stop hitting me!  Stop it!  I didn't do nothing!" The junkie sobs, turning his face away.  How old is he, anyways?  Seventeen?  Twenty?  Dan can barely tell; this kid is all skin and bones and track marks.

“Hey,” Dan says, already breathless. "C’mon, kid, just calm— _fuck_!” 

The junkie, savage-eyed and drooling, bites deeply into the soft gap between Dan’s thumb and forefinger.   His teeth grind together, animalistic, chewing right through the gloves.  Dan screams in surprise and hurt, punching the kid in the temple.  He digs his fingers in the kid’s hollow cheek, prying between his clenched teeth.  “Get off!”

A shadow falls over the two of them, black as back alley dirt, outlined in crisp definition against the orange street light.

“Quiet.”

It's the only warning Dan has before Rorschach’s hand descends upon him, flinging him off the junkie as easy as you please.  There is no hesitation; one moment Rorschach is an outline, just a shadow on a city street, and the next thing Dan knows, Rorschach is swooping down on this poor idiot kid and his fist is falling over and over and over again, methodical and mindless as a clock.

The kid's sneakers are stutter-kicking on the tarmac, his white-knuckled fingers losing their death-grip on the lapel of Rorschach's grimy coat.   He manages to gurgle out _pleases_ between broken teeth, then chokes like he might be swallowing the fragments.  Dan can’t help but notice the kid’s pissed himself.

“Rorschach,” Dan gasps, feeling ill.  He takes an awkward step forward, hand reaching uselessly for Rorschach’s shoulder even though he knows it's not allowed, but Rorschach's _killing him_ , and they don't kill, they're the heroes, they, they…

Licking his lips, Nite Owl sets his hand down, and there is a deafening silence, a stillness that twists his belly up and tingles in his aching knuckles.  The kid wheezes, no longer struggling against this implacable force that is Rorschach, swollen eyes sliding closed with a relieved rasp.

“Rorschach, _stop_ ,” Dan whispers, shocked despite himself; this is the new order of things. "You're killing him."

There is a pause, and Dan's hand is shrugged off as Rorschach gets to his feet, the knees of his suit stained dark with grime. “Deserves to die.  Scum.” He turns his head slightly, obviously looking at Dan, ink blots shifting in slow, lazy patterns – red splotches ruining the symmetry. “Can't be soft, Daniel.”

But despite this truth Rorschach tugs his scarf back into place absently, steps over the kid like he barely even notices him to stand by a dumpster.   He doesn’t bother to wipe his face clean, probably doesn't even know the blood is there.

Not as if it’s skin.

Not like it’s his face.

Nite Owl squints at his partner – a stranger – and crouches down to examine the breathless kid.   His chest makes a wet rattle when it rises, in jerking starts and stops.  His skin feels clammy when Dan presses his fingers over the kid’s fast, weak pulse.  There is something clear leaking from his ears.  “Hell, Rorschach.  You didn't have to—to hit him that hard.  He's just a kid for chrissakes."

Rorschach makes an uncommitted sound, glancing down the alley.   It’s both more and less than what Dan expects, these days.  Ever since that warm, quiet night in ’75.  _That's_ when it all went to hell.  It's been months – years? – since that terrible night, the last time Rorschach stumbled into Dan’s house, reeking of blood and wet dog and something a little more foul than the usual stink of the alleyways.   Dan didn't have the words then, either, and Rorschach was gone by morning.  And he never really came back, did he?

Dan still checks his locks five times a night, just in case the old Rorschach comes back, looking for a free meal and a first aid kit.

There is a silence as Dan continues to stare at Rorschach, fingers still resting lightly against the junkie’s collarbones, a little too defensive for anyone’s peace of mind. “Jesus.  Maybe we should leave him by the hospital instead.”

“Why bother?” Rorschach shrugs, indifferent to his own violence, somehow above and below it at once.  He turns to face Dan head on, ink blots coalescing into indecipherable shapes, unfamiliar and jagged, like monsters half-glimpsed in the night. “Why?” he asks in that terrible new voice, and Dan feels suddenly there's an answer he should have, that he should say something, do something, now, something _so important_ …

Dan opens his mouth to reply, feeling inexpressibly small, helpless, needed, but he doesn't know the words, can't know what to say to this stranger before him.

“Hnn,” Rorschach says, after a moment, disappointed and not; he probably expected this personal failure.  He stares out at nothing in particular, like he can't bring himself to care that Dan's just sitting there, slack-jawed and stunned into impotence. “Drop him off, Daniel.  Going to finish patrol.”

 _Alone_ , he doesn’t say.  Doesn’t need to, now.

“It's almost morning,” Nite Owl says, plaintive and pathetic to his own ears.  He becomes painfully aware that he is still looming over the junkie like he's protecting this nobody criminal from his _partner_ , and it's all screwed to hell and back, isn’t it?  It's just supposed to be them against the world—

“I know,” Rorschach grunts, slouching off into the alley. “Goodbye, Nite Owl.”

“I—” Dan says, useless as ever. “I didn’t.”

There's a long rattle from below, thick and wet, a distinct sense of finality settles over him, holds him stuck fast to the earth.

Dan looks down.  He fumbles at the kid’s throat, looking for the fluttering pulse, for any sign of life, even though he _knows_.

The kid's dead.

And it's all fucked up.

**Author's Note:**

> Criticism welcomed.


End file.
